I'm going to lose it with how much I want her. "It's not bad at all. Just know that if I go too far, all you have to say is?—"
"Noodle, I know." Ruthie gives me a sly look and strokes her hand up my cock again, sending shockwaves up my spine. "Look at how hard you are."
"Stroke rougher," I tell her, voice raspy. I want to grab her and force her hand to move faster, but I clench my palms against the tiles, holding myself steady. I want her to explore me because she wants to, not because I'm demanding it.
Ruthie squeezes my cock as she works it, the soap making everything slippery and gliding and amazing. Keffing amazing. I groan as she gives the tip a bit of extra attention, a shudder rippling through me.
"I think a piercing here would be sexy," she whispers. "Right here at the tip. I bet it'd be so sensitive, just like my nipple. Every time fabric brushed over it, you'd tingle. And since I asked you to get it, you'd think of me. You'd be hard all the time?—"
The climax explodes out of me and I snarl as I come in her grip. Her hands keep stroking even as my seed spurts across her skin, hot and sticky. It feels so good that I can't stop coming. With every touch of her hands it's another spurt, another shot of semen sprayed across her fingers, until I'm utterly spent.
Wrung out, too.
I take a shuddering breath, easing my hands down from the walls. I strained against them so hard I'm surprised the tile isn't cracked. My biceps feel as spent as my cock, though, and I want to laugh at the ridiculousness of it. The wonderful, glorious ridiculousness of this perfect moment.
Ruthie rinses her hands off in the spray and turns to me with a sly smile. Her normally spiked hair is plastered to her skull and she looks impish and adorable. "Feel better?"
I bark out a laugh and pull her against me. "You know I do. But now it's my turn to wash you."
"Oh no," she says in a flat, mocking tone. "Please. Stop. Don't."
I kiss her temple and turn her in my arms, until her front is facing the stream of water and her backside brushes against me. I hold my hands out and she squirts the body wash onto them.
"Hurry it up," she tells me in a teasing voice. "Erzah's going to be looking for me soon."
"He can wait."
She giggles, the sound light and bright and beautiful as I carefully wash her body. I glide my hands over her arms and down her front, mindful of the sensitive piercing. The last thing I want is to cause her pain. I like that she comes to my arms so easily now. I won't do anything to jeopardize that. I take my time, stroking over her back with the soap as she takes a step forward and then washing her buttocks. Okay, I give them a bit of a jiggle, just to make her laugh again.
I love her laughter so much.
I kneel in the shower, washing her legs and then one foot as she lifts it into the air. "So you're working on wiring, today?" Her hand rests atop my head, and I imagine her as a queen letting her servants attend her. I don't mind that role at all. "Why you?"
"Before I was head of security, I was in maintenance for a long time. Erzah is busy, and Zaemen will forget, so I said I'd work on it." I clean her toes, marveling at how small they are. "Something's sending a problem code when the diagnostic is run. It's not a serious error, but one that needs to be corrected before they fly out."
"We," she corrects.
I set her foot down. "Hmm?"
"Before 'we' fly out."
Now comes the moment I've been dreading. "Ruthie...you're safe on this ship without me. You know that, right? Lord Straik won't let anything happen to you."
She pulls out of my grip and rinses the soap off her leg, then turns the water off. She is silent, and I worry she's upset.
"Ruthie?"
"You're not staying on the ship?" Her voice is unsteady.
"I owe Erzah a favor from a while back. He's asked me to help him with his bar for a while. Act as a bouncer while he's running things. And Lord Straik won't need a full crew forever. He's talked about settling down with Lady Ruth...and I don't have to stay here forever. Just a while. Just to help Erzah get started."
She's silent. Too silent.
"Say something, Ruthie."
"You're staying here on Risda," she says, flat and emotionless.
"For a while, yes."
She won't look me in the eye. "And Ruth isn't."
"She's staying with Lord Straik, of course. They're staying right now but we've all been talking about what the future looks like for us..." I trail off, because Ruthie has carefully avoided such conversations. I hate that we're confronting it now, when we were so happy five minutes ago. "Lord Straik can't stay here forever. He'd draw too much attention to Risda and strain Lord va'Rin's hospitality. He's going to want someplace of his own."